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  • Patriots defensive lineman Christian Barmore accused of domestic assault

    Patriots defensive lineman Christian Barmore accused of domestic assault

    New England Patriots defensive lineman Christian J. Barmore is facing a domestic assault and battery charge after his girlfriend told police he threw her to the ground in August at his home outside Boston.

    A criminal complaint issued Dec. 18 claims Barmore, 26, briefly took the woman’s phone, threw her to the ground, and grabbed her by the shirt inside the home in Mansfield, Mass.

    Mansfield Police Sgt. John Armstrong said the woman called police on Aug. 25 to report what had occurred almost three weeks earlier. The woman told police she had stayed at the home periodically during their relationship of several years.

    Barmore was a second-round draft pick in 2021 out of Alabama. He starred in high school at Lincoln before transferring to Neumann Goretti.

    Barmore’s lawyer, David Meier, issued a statement Wednesday saying “the evidence will demonstrate that no criminal conduct took place.” Meier called it a personal matter and said he expected it to be “resolved in the near future and both parties will move forward together.”

    Jets quarterback Justin Fields throws a pass under pressure from New England’s Christian Barmore on Nov. 13.

    The woman told police she took their daughter early the morning of Aug. 8 into Barmore’s bedroom, where Barmore was upset because the thermostat was 2 degrees warmer than he preferred. She said their daughter wanted to see him.

    She claimed Barmore “picked up the child, placed her on the floor just outside the master bedroom, turned back into the room and slammed the door shut,” according to police.

    As the woman packed her belongings to leave later in the day, Barmore took the phone from her hand and disconnected a call with the woman’s mother, according to the criminal complaint. When she headed for the front door to call for help, police said, Barmore allegedly “grabbed her before she could and threw her to the floor.”

    Barmore grabbed her by the shirt but “eventually let go” and the woman got up, she told police. A car provided by the team picked up the woman and their daughter and drove them to Delaware. She provided police with a photo showing bruises she said occurred when she was thrown to the floor.

    New England coach Mike Vrabel said that Barmore was away from the team with an illness Wednesday but that he hadn’t heard anything that would make him unavailable to play Sunday.

    “We’ve made a statement and we’ve taken the allegations very seriously,” Vrabel said, referring to allegations against both Barmore and receiver Stefon Diggs. Diggs has been charged with felony strangulation or suffocation and misdemeanor assault and battery in a dispute with his former private chef.

    “I don’t think we have to jump to any sort of conclusions right now. Let the process take its toll,” Vrabel said.

    An arraignment was scheduled for early February. The charge is a misdemeanor.

    The team’s public relations office e-mailed a statement saying it had been aware of the matter when it occurred and notified the league.

    “The matter remains part of an ongoing legal process. We will respect that process, continue to monitor the situation closely, as we have over the past few months, and cooperate fully with the league,” the Patriots said.

  • The best and worst technologies of 2025

    The best and worst technologies of 2025

    It’s my annual tradition to take stock of big themes in technology, with a focus on positive developments for you in the past year. Here is the tally of the mostly good, but occasionally crummy, year in technology for 2025.

    AI that’s useful and less creepy

    I love the motto of Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of web search and browser company DuckDuckGo: AI should be “useful, private, and optional.”

    DuckDuckGo lets you access chatbots including ChatGPT but insists that the AI companies can’t access your data. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with ChatGPT owner OpenAI.)

    You can turn off AI features in DuckDuckGo, too. I’m hoping that DuckDuckGo inspires more AI kill switches across the internet.

    I’m declaring DuckDuckGo the best technology company of 2025. Even if you never use its products, DuckDuckGo shows that people and companies can challenge the Silicon Valley conventional wisdom that AI is inevitable, inescapable, and insatiable.

    I’m also curious about the just announced encrypted chatbot from Moxie Marlinspike.

    I haven’t tried it yet, but Marlinspike helped create the gold standard encryption that’s used by the Signal app, WhatsApp, Meta Messenger, and Google’s texting app for Android phones. If he can likewise establish a usable, private chatbot standard, that’s a boon for you.

    And I never thought I’d say this, but I’m a convert to AI search technologies for questions and research that don’t work in standard web searches.

    I asked ChatGPT recently for the Stephen King novel featuring a character that carves into the skin of another. (“It.”) I used Google’s AI Mode to poke into technology stock returns since the 2010s. It wasn’t perfect but it was useful to guide more intensive research.

    Using AI search tools isn’t life changing. And AI still has the same problems. It risks draining precious resources, preying on vulnerable minds, wiping out jobs, or choking your favorite websites.

    The worst technology of 2025 is a no brainer: AI “agents,” the chatbots or AI browsers that promised you could just tell AI what to do — order groceries or find the best mattress. Outside a handful of tasks such as software coding, agents are an overhyped mess.

    It became glaring this year that many Americans mistrust, reject, or feel pessimistic about AI even as we use the technology more. That’s not a contradiction. It’s a warning sign.

    The companies that make AI, and those of us who use it, must focus on judicious deployment of AI. We can insist that AI be useful, private, optional, and open about its shortcomings. And we must be clear-eyed about when AI is the wrong tool for the job.

    A technology that beat inflation and got cheaper

    Government inflation figures show that prices of wireless phone service have fallen this year. It shows that corporate warfare can actually help you.

    Mobile phone carriers are increasingly fighting one another for customers. That has showered many people with steeply discounted new smartphones. There’s also a flourishing market for alternative mobile service providers that can save you loads of money.

    The bad news: You can probably expect price increases in 2026 for laptops and some other electronics. Blame AI.

    Gen Z protests and government workers showed technology’s empowering promise

    In the United States, federal government workers who were stunned by the tumultuous start to the second Trump administration swarmed to Signal and Reddit to discuss what was happening, buck each other up, and share their experiences.

    And in countries such as Nepal and Indonesia, young people disappointed in their political leaders used apps such as TikTok, Discord, and WhatsApp to spread memes, organize protests, and even appoint new political leaders.

    These twin movements felt like an echo of the Arab Spring. Those early 2010s uprisings helped cement the idea that people could harness social media to unite against entrenched power.

    As with the Arab Spring, 2025’s technology-aided movements might not bring lasting change. But they did remind us of technology’s promise to empower the little guys.

    Saving the most important for last

    The most important technology of 2025 is:

    YouTube. It’s the place to understand where our culture, technology, and media are headed.

    Google-owned YouTube remains America’s most popular social media service among adults and teens. It tops Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram by a country mile.

    Americans also spend more time watching YouTube on TV than anything else. Netflix is a distant second, according to Nielsen.

    YouTube has spawned news and entertainment empires that couldn’t have existed before, including MrBeast and Ms. Rachel. It’s also increasingly the home for big events such as football games and the Oscars. That combination has grabbed your time, advertisers’ dollars, and cultural influence away from traditional Hollywood and media gatekeepers.

    That makes YouTube the most consequential technology in our lives and — with apologies to Netflix and the Ellison family — the most disruptive force in media and entertainment.

    Runner-up: Smartphones. There will more attempts in 2026 at AI-dedicated smart glasses and other gadgets intended to displace the smartphone as the primary computer for billions of people. But it may be that the killer AI device is still the smartphone.

  • See the moment N.J.’s runaway wallaby was captured in a Walmart parking lot

    See the moment N.J.’s runaway wallaby was captured in a Walmart parking lot

    Rex the wallaby has been found and returned to his home at a petting zoo in Williamstown, Gloucester County, the Lots of Love Farm announced shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday.

    Rex, a 3-year-old male wallaby, had been missing since late Monday from Lots of Love Farm, said the farm’s owner, Ron Layden, but was apprehended on Tuesday night at a nearby Walmart.

    “He’s all good,” Layden said Wednesday. “He’s in there eating hay, and he’s nice and happy.”

    Rex was captured without incident around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, with the help of a group of teenagers who had joined the search for the missing animal, Layden said.

    In a video of the capture provided by Lots of Love Farm, four young men can be seen wrangling the wallaby behind a fence near a retention pond. One is able to grab hold of it and carry it toward a waiting kennel.

    “Let’s go!” one of them shouts in celebration.

    The Walmart in question is located about a half-mile from Lots of Love Farm, where Layden said the agreeable wallaby had last been seen late Monday afternoon, around feeding time. Layden said Wednesday he believed an unsecured gate had allowed the animal to break free.

    The capture marked the conclusion of a dizzying 24-hour period in which the 3-foot wallaby captured the hearts and imaginations of local residents, while also garnering national attention.

    “My friend lives in Atlanta, and he called me up and said, ‘Yo, he’s on my TV!’“ Layden said.

    Layden — whose farm includes goats, sheep, peacocks, a camel, “a zebra-donkey mix, [and] a bunch of cows” — said that while he had dealt with the occasional loose animal before, this was his farm’s first wallaby escape.

    As word of the escape spread Tuesday, messages of concern and support had flooded the farm’s Facebook page, along with suggestions and reported possible sightings.

    Though some tips placed Rex as far away as Sicklerville, three miles from the farm, early sightings placed him near the Walmart, which suggests Rex never wandered too far.

    In a video posted online on Tuesday, an animal matching Rex’s description could be seen hopping casually around an onlooker’s vehicle in the well-lit Walmart parking lot.

    “It’s a [expletive] kangaroo!” the amazed onlooker yells in the video.

    As a result of the sudden notoriety, Layden said Wednesday that he plans to put Rex out over the weekend at the family’s petting zoo, which is open Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

    A few days ago, Layden said, no one knew Rex existed.

    Now?

    “Everybody wants to come see him,” he said.

  • France grants citizenship to George and Amal Clooney and their twins Ella and Alexander

    France grants citizenship to George and Amal Clooney and their twins Ella and Alexander

    PARIS — Call them Monsieur and Madame Clooney.

    France’s government says that George Clooney, his wife Amal, and their twins Ella and Alexander have been awarded French citizenship.

    The naturalizations of the Kentucky-born movie star and his family were announced last weekend in the Journal Officiel, where French government decrees are published.

    The government notice indicated that human rights lawyer Amal Clooney was naturalized under her maiden name, Amal Alamuddin. It also noted that George Clooney’s middle name is Timothy.

    The couple purchased an estate in France in 2021. In an interview with Esquire in October, Clooney described their “farm in France” as their primary residence — a decision the 64-year-old actor and his 47-year-old wife made with their children in mind.

    “I was worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood,” he told the magazine. “I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids.”

    Growing up away from the spotlight in France, “they’re not on their iPads, you know?” he said. “They have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life.”

    Representatives for George Clooney did not respond to the Associated Press’ request for comment Monday. It wasn’t clear whether he retained his American citizenship. Amal Clooney was born in Lebanon and raised in the United Kingdom. The 8-year-old twins were born in London.

    The French government’s Interior Ministry did not explain why the Clooneys were entitled to French citizenship but said in a statement to the AP that the couple “followed a rigorous procedure” with security checks and interviews required as part of the naturalization process.

    Non-French residents of France have multiple possible routes to becoming naturalized, including if they are deemed to have abilities and talents that would enable them to render what the government describes as “important services to France.”

    In recent media interviews when he was promoting Jay Kelly, Clooney said that he is trying to teach himself French using a language-learning app but that it remains “horrible, horrible.” He said that his wife and children speak the language perfectly.

    “They speak French in front of me so that they can say terrible things about me to my face and I don’t know,” he joked, speaking to French broadcaster Canal+.

    French media have reported that the Clooneys live part-time in their luxury 18th-century villa outside the town of Brignoles in southern France, where they can keep a lower profile and their children are protected from unauthorized photographs by French privacy laws.

    Brignoles Mayor Didier Brémond told broadcaster BFMTV on Tuesday that the Clooneys are “a very simple and very accessible family” and noted that the actor shops in town and attended the opening of its cinema. Their decision to become French citizens testified to “his love for our country,” the mayor said.

    “Here, he wants to live normally and that’s what he is trying to do,” he said.

  • The Boozy Mutt, a Fairmount dog-friendly bar, will be closing after two years in business

    The Boozy Mutt, a Fairmount dog-friendly bar, will be closing after two years in business

    Another Philadelphia bar has gone to the dogs.

    Fairmount’s pup-friendly pub the Boozy Mutt is closing its doors Jan. 3 after just over two years in business, co-owners Sam and Allison Mattiola announced via Instagram on Monday.

    “After much thought, we made the difficult decision to close the Boozy Mutt … What began as a dream became something truly special because of our community — our guests, our team, and all the good mutts who walked through our doors,” read the post, which has been shared over 1,400 times. Nearly every comment is from a dejected dog parent wishing for another round of beer and belly rubs.

    The Mattiolas, who are married, opened the Boozy Mutt at 2639 Poplar St. in December 2023, transforming former rock-and-roll dive the North Star into roughly 7,000 square feet for pooches and their people to roam across two floors and an outdoor patio. The venture was inspired by pandemic-era trips to a dog park with Bernadoodle Buba, where the couple would camp out with lawn chairs and a pack of beers to make friends.

    At the Mutt, as regulars called it, dogs are allowed to mingle off-leash under the supervision of aptly-named “Rufferees” who monitor and facilitate healthy play. All owners had to register their pet’s vaccinations before gaining access to the space, which includes a self-service dog wash room, outdoor TVs, a summertime-only puppy pool, and a menu of bite-sized “human grade” dog treats.

    Tess Bodden (left) and Jenn Maher pose with their pet shih tzus Hazel, Hendrix, and Kelce at the Boozy Mutt, a popular third space for dog parents in Fairmount.

    The bar felt like a version of Cheers for pet parents almost immediately, regulars told The Inquirer, thanks in part to a rotation of events that ranged from weekly quizzos to breed meetups and Pitch-A-Friend nights for singles. A monthly membership was $40, while an annual Mutt subscription cost $360.

    The bar had upward of 100 regular members, Sam Mattiola said, all of whom will receive prorated refunds in the coming days. “People would tell us that this was their third space, that they go home, they go to work, and they go to the Boozy Mutt,” he said. “We walk away with our heads held high knowing that we achieved our goal of creating a place that made people feel at home.”

    From 2023: A dog walked into a bar. It’s the Boozy Mutt, a new indoor-outdoor spot in Fairmount for people and their pooches.

    And yet, the Mattiolas said, running a bar that catered to dogs and their owners in equal measure proved increasingly challenging as the cost of rent, insurance, food, and alcohol continued to increase. While dog-friendly bars and beer gardens have taken off in the South, the concept has had mixed success in Philly: Manayunk dog bar Bark Social closed abruptly last year after its parent company declared bankruptcy. Its replacement, an outpost of the Atlanta-based company Fetch Park, opened in November.

    “It’s a pretty overhead-intensive business model that we have, and it’s just gotten pretty hard to make the math work after the last couple of years,” Sam Mattiola explained. “There was just always something new hitting [us] in the face.”

    Darby, a 5-year-old shih tzu, sits on a picnic table at the Boozy Mutt in Fairmount during an August 2025 breed meetup.

    The Boozy Mutt’s 26 employees were informed of the impending closure before the announcement went public Monday, Allison Mattiola said, and the couple has spent the last three days putting together job recommendations. Neither she or her husband had worked in hospitality prior, and the couple has no immediate plans to revive the business elsewhere.

    Where is Fido to go?

    Already, the Boozy Mutt’s impending closure has been ruff — pun intended — for Fairmount pet parents.

    “It’s a loss for us and a loss for the dogs,” said Sarah Kuwik, whose 2½-year-old pooch Willie “grew up at the Mutt.”

    Fetch Park, a new dog bar, opens in Manayunk

    Kuwik started taking what she described as her “50-pound mutt” to the bar almost immediately after it opened. It has given Willie a social life most adults would envy.

    Willie goes on dates at the Mutt with his girlfriend Bea, a 3-year-old golden retriever who clings to him like a magnet. And in June, Willie had a joint WrestleMania-themed birthday party with his best friend Levon, also a mutt with boundless energy.

    Willie (left) poses with his golden retriever girlfriend Bea (right) and his best pup friend Levon at the Boozy Mutt, where the trio first met.

    Kuwik doesn’t know how Willie will handle the news: “He’ll pull us toward [the Boozy Mutt] every time we’re on Poplar [Street] … it’s going to be very confusing.”

    The Boozy Mutt is also what drew Valerie Speare to Fairmount in the first place. Speare put an offer on her current rowhouse a mere four blocks from the bar after grabbing brunch there in between open houses last spring. Now she goes to the Mutt four times a week with her pugs Lily and Winston, who are both deeply playful (and deeply codependent).

    The Mutt “is exactly the kind of thing I want in a neighborhood,” said Speare, who has lived in the area for a year-and-a-half. “Where else can I go have a mimosa on a Saturday morning and have my dog sitting in my lap?”

    Valerie Speare, of Fairmount, and her pugs Winston and Lily lounge with Chihuahua pals at the Boozy Mutt. Speare takes her pugs to the bar four times a week, she estimates.

    For others, the bar has fostered connections that extend beyond puppy playdates. Katherine Ross has lived in Fairmount since 2004, but has seen the neighborhood — and the people in it — with new eyes, thanks to her 4-year-old pug Hoagie.

    At the Mutt, Hoagie likes to beg for bites of Old Bay and truffle-coated fries or splash in the puppy pool. Ross, meanwhile, has enjoyed getting to meet her neighbors.

    “I’ve lived in this neighborhood for over 20 years, and to be honest with you, I didn’t know all that many people until I got a dog,” Ross said. “Having a place like the Boozy Mutt brought a lot of friendships together.”

    Throwback: Philly Shih Tzus meet up at Fairmount’s Boozy Mutt
  • Gospel singer Richard Smallwood has died at 77, leaving a legacy that inspired many in music

    Gospel singer Richard Smallwood has died at 77, leaving a legacy that inspired many in music

    Richard Smallwood, a gospel singer and recording artist nominated eight times for Grammy Awards, has died. He was 77.

    Mr. Smallwood died Tuesday of complications of kidney failure at a rehabilitation and nursing center in Sandy Spring, Md., his representative Bill Carpenter announced.

    Mr. Smallwood had health issues for many years, and music gave him the strength to endure, Carpenter said in an interview.

    “Richard was so dedicated to music, and that was the thing that kept him alive all these years,” he said. “Making music that made people feel something is what made him want to keep breathing and keep moving and keep living.”

    Mr. Smallwood’s songs were performed and recorded over the years by artists such as Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Destiny’s Child, and Boyz II Men. Houston brought his music to film by performing “I Love the Lord” in the 1996 movie The Preacher’s Wife, according to Mr. Smallwood’s biography at the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

    Mr. Smallwood “opened up my whole world of gospel music,” singer and songwriter Chaka Khan wrote on Facebook after his death.

    “His music didn’t just inspire me, it transformed me,” she said. “He is my favorite pianist, and his brilliance, spirit, and devotion to the music have shaped generations, including my own journey.”

    Mr. Smallwood was born Nov. 30, 1948, in Atlanta and began to play piano by ear by the age of 5, according to biographic materials provided by Carpenter. By age 7, he was taking formal lessons. He had formed his own gospel group by the time he was 11.

    He was primarily raised in Washington, D.C., by his mother, Mabel, and his stepfather, the Rev. Chester Lee “C.L.” Smallwood. His stepfather was the pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington.

    Mr. Smallwood was a music pioneer in multiple ways at Howard University in Washington, where he graduated cum laude with a music degree. He was a member of Howard’s first gospel group, the Celestials. He was also a founding member of the university’s gospel choir, according to an obituary from Carpenter.

    After college, Mr. Smallwood taught music at the University of Maryland and went on to form the Richard Smallwood Singers in 1977, bringing a contemporary sound to traditional gospel music. He later formed Vision, a large choir that fueled some of his biggest gospel hits, including “Total Praise.”

    “Total Praise” became a modern-day hymn that touched people from all types of backgrounds and walks of life, Carpenter said by phone Wednesday.

    “You can go into any kind of church — a Black church, a white church, a nondenominational church — and you might hear that song,” he said. “Somehow it found its footing throughout the whole Christian world. If he never wrote anything else, that would have put him in the modern hymn book.”

    Wonder performed “Total Praise” at the funeral of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son Dexter Scott King at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 10, 2024.

    In recent years, mild dementia and other health issues prevented Mr. Smallwood from recording music, and members of his Vision choir helped care for him.

    His legacy will live on “through every note and every soul he touched,” Khan said.

    “I am truly looking forward to singing with you in heaven,” she said.

  • ‘She was amazing’: Woman allegedly stabbed to death by mother in Upper Darby remembered by loved ones

    ‘She was amazing’: Woman allegedly stabbed to death by mother in Upper Darby remembered by loved ones

    When Nicole Lauria met Daniele Grovola more than a decade ago, it was clear that the little girl from Upper Darby would one day become a star employee at her karaoke company.

    “She was amazing,” said Lauria, the owner of Lucky Music Productions. “A lot of people use the phrase, ‘She lit up a room.’ But she really did.”

    Tragedy struck the Grovola family days before Christmas.

    Daniele Grovola, 23, was found with fatal stab wounds in her family home in Secane the morning of Dec. 23.

    Police arrested the young woman’s mother, Diane Grovola, 57, whom they have accused of stabbing her daughter to death in the home. Her husband, John, Daniele Grovola’s father, discovered the horrific scene as he arrived home from an overnight shift at the airport, authorities said.

    Friends of Daniele Grovola are shocked by a crime they are struggling to understand.

    Photo of Daniele Grovola.

    In the week since Grovola’s death, they have launched a fundraiser to support her father and cover the young woman’s funeral costs. The money will also go toward veterinary bills for the family’s dog, Ezra, which police suspect Grovola’s mother also stabbed that morning.

    And loved ones are sharing memories of Daniele Grovola, who brought joy and warmth to those she encountered.

    Lauria met John Grovola around 15 years ago, when he made the leap from singing karaoke to joining Lucky Music as an equipment manager and DJ. The company hosts events at venues throughout Delaware County and Philadelphia.

    Grovola soon began to bring around his daughter, who took a fast interest in her father’s work.

    The father and daughter were “immensely close,” Lauria said. Following in her father’s footsteps, Daniele Grovola eventually joined Lucky Music herself, managing the company’s DJ equipment.

    She was training to become a bar trivia host before she died.

    Her radiant personality shone on the job, according to Lauria, including at a karaoke party the company hosted in 2024 for children who had disabilities and were on the autism spectrum.

    “[Daniele] was just amazing at encouraging them to sing, helping them to feel positive about themselves,” Lauria said. “She was just a warm person.”

    Hailey Geller, 23, said she and Grovola had been best friends since the third grade. The girls went on to attend Upper Darby High School together.

    “She was never a bother,” Geller said. “She was really good to me, and I was good to her.”

    Hailey Geller with Daniele Grovola and her father, John.

    Grovola had her quirks, Geller said, amusing friends with her obsession with Sharpies. The girls would spend afternoons at the mall, where Grovola would hunt for multicolored markers to use in her artwork.

    She was an avid fan of anime shows, Geller added, and, as a music lover, adored her headphones.

    Geller said Grovola was always there to confide in. In recent months, however, some of Grovola’s comments about her home life had concerned her.

    Grovola told Geller that her mother had been “in and out” of local crisis centers. And Grovola described her mother as having “mental issues,” Geller said, once disclosing she had locked herself in the basement to avoid her.

    Still, Geller believes Grovola did not share the complete story of possible tensions with her mother. Police have yet to identify a motive in the killing and continue to investigate.

    Friends like Lauria said those who knew the Grovola family did not suspect such a crime was possible.

    “It makes no sense,” Lauria said. “[Daniele] was a great daughter to her mother … loved her mother very much. This just came out of nowhere.”

  • Russian drone attack injures 3 Ukrainian children as Putin expresses confidence in victory

    Russian drone attack injures 3 Ukrainian children as Putin expresses confidence in victory

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones blasted apartment buildings and the power grid in the southern Ukraine city of Odesa in an overnight attack that injured six people, including a toddler and two other children, officials said Wednesday.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed confidence in his country’s eventual victory in the nearly four-year war against its neighbor.

    Four apartment buildings were damaged in the Odesa bombardment, according to regional military administration head Oleh Kiper. The DTEK power provider said two of its energy facilities had significant damage. The company said 10 substations that distribute electricity in the region have been damaged in December.

    Russia has escalated attacks on urban areas of Ukraine. As its invasion approaches a four-year milestone in February, it has also intensified targeting of energy infrastructure, seeking to deny Ukrainians heat and running water in the bitter winter months.

    Between January and November, more than 2,300 Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 11,000 were injured, the United Nations said earlier in December. That was 26% higher than in the same period in 2024 and 70% higher than in 2023, it said.

    Renewed diplomatic push to stop the fighting

    Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany, and Ukraine “to discuss advancing the next steps in the European peace process.”

    “We focused on how to move the discussions forward in a practical way on behalf of (Trump’s) peace process, including strengthening security guarantees and developing effective deconfliction mechanisms to help end the war and ensure it does not restart,” Witkoff said in a post on X.

    He added that a main element of the conversation was the reconstruction of Ukraine and how to ensure its prosperity in the future.

    Wednesday’s call comes after U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday and announced that a settlement is “closer than ever before.” European and Ukrainian officials plan to meet Saturday, lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov reaffirmed, adding that U.S. representatives were expected to join remotely.

    Zelensky also is due to hold talks next week with European leaders supporting his efforts to secure acceptable terms.

    Putin is convinced of victory

    Despite progress in peace negotiations, which he didn’t mention, Putin reaffirmed his belief in Russia’s eventual success in its invasion during his traditional New Year’s address.

    He gave special praise to Russian troops deployed in Ukraine, describing them as heroes “fighting for your native land, truth, and justice.”

    “We believe in you and our victory,” Putin said, as cited by Russian state news agency Tass.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said 86 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over Russian regions, the Black Sea and the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula.

    Russia claims Putin’s residence was attacked

    Russia’s Defense Ministry released a video of a downed drone that it said was one of 91 Ukrainian drones involved in an alleged attack this week on a Putin residence in northwestern Russia, a claim Kyiv has denied as a “lie.”

    The nighttime video showed a man in camouflage, a helmet and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow. The man, his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the Defense Ministry provided any location or date.

    The video and claims could not be independently verified.

    Kyiv has denied the allegations of an attack on Putin’s lakeside country residence and called them a ruse to derail progress in peace negotiations.

    Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation said Wednesday the images could not be considered evidence of the attack as the origin of the damaged drone, as well as the time and location of the video itself, remained unknown.

    “It took Russia more than two days to fabricate this ‘evidence’. The photographs of metal fragments laid out on the snow, published by the Russian Defense Ministry, do not prove anything in themselves,” the center said in a statement on its website.

    “There is no video of air defense operations in the area of ​​the residence, no recorded drone crashes in the claimed locations and no consistency even in its own figures, which have changed repeatedly.”

    Maj. Gen. Alexander Romanenkov of the Russian air force claimed that the drones took off from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions. At a briefing where no questions were allowed, he presented a map showing the drone flight routes before they allegedly were downed by Russian air defenses over the Bryansk, Tver, Smolensk, and Novgorod regions.

    The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, called the Russian allegations “a deliberate distraction” from peace talks.

    Ukraine weapons fund receives billions of dollars

    Zelensky said Romania and Croatia are the latest countries to join a fund that buys weapons for Ukraine from the United States.

    The financial arrangement, known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase U.S. weapons, munitions, and equipment.

    Since it was established in August, 24 countries are now contributing to the fund, according to Zelensky. The fund has received $4.3 billion, with almost $1.5 billion coming in December, he said on social media.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Security Service carried out a drone strike on a major Russian fuel storage facility in the northwestern Yaroslavl region early Tuesday, according to a Ukrainian security official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

    Long-range drones struck the Temp oil depot in the city of Rybinsk, part of Russia’s state fuel reserve system, the official told the Associated Press. Rybinsk is about 500 miles from the Ukrainian border.

  • What we know about the forthcoming construction of the South Street Pedestrian Bridge

    What we know about the forthcoming construction of the South Street Pedestrian Bridge

    The new pedestrian bridge extension coming to Society Hill and Queen Village, which will better connect the neighborhoods to the Delaware River waterfront, is reaching a milestone.

    The South Street Pedestrian Bridge expansion will extend the existing redbrick footbridge constructed in the mid-1990s with a longer and more distinctive suspended archway bridge, as part of the long-planned I-95 capping project. Construction begins this spring, but the bridge will not be open to the public until 2027, a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesperson said.

    A rendering of the South Street Pedestrian Bridge extension that will better connect South Street to the Delaware River waterfront. Construction will begin in Spring 2026 and go through 2027, when the bridge will open to pedestrians and cyclists.

    The 250-foot-long bridge will allow pedestrians to cross over Columbus Boulevard and I-95 with entrances at South Street and Lombard Circle that have more accessible walkways for people with disabilities. Pedestrian access to the waterfront is crucial for people on South Street visiting attractions like Penn’s Landing, Cherry Street Pier, and Spruce Street Harbor Park.

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    Construction will use an installation method in which the archways are built at a nearby location and then rolled into place, instead of being built on-site.

    “The contractor was able to eliminate long-term lane closures and full closures on Columbus Boulevard,” PennDot spokesperson Brad Rudolph said. “While this method is fairly common, it is the first time PennDot has performed it in [Southeastern Pennsylvania] with this type of pedestrian structure.”

    An aerial view of the construction site where the South Street Pedestrian Bridge extension will take place. A rendering of the archways in a nearby parking lot show where the bridge structure will be assembled and then later rolled into place where a red line marks its installation site. Construction begins in Spring 2026, with the bridge open to the public in 2027.

    The bridge structure will be assembled for about two months in a parking lot near the installation site this spring. The new structure will then be rolled into place by mid-2026, according to PennDot. Additional work, including pouring the bridge deck, will take an additional year, with the span expected to open to pedestrians and cyclists in 2027.

    Sitting 258 feet long and 100 feet from the ground to its highest arch, the footbridge will feature 14-foot-wide walkways with lit archways and handrail lighting. The entrance at Lombard Circle will have a spiraling ramp to allow for cyclists to stay on their bikes and to provide easier wheelchair and mobility access.

    A rendering of the mass timber building planned for the Penn’s Landing park.

    The pedestrian bridge is only a small part of PennDot’s $329 million project to build a cap over I-95 at Penn’s Landing, which will house a 12-acre Penn’s Landing Park with green spaces, playgrounds, and an amphitheater. Construction on the cap is nearly 30% complete as of this month.

    Nearby, Old City is getting a revamp of Market Street, where the road will be shrunk and more pedestrian thoroughfares will be added, with the new Tamanend Square plaza at Second and Market Streets to serve as the centerpiece.

  • Police shot and hospitalized a man armed with a knife in North Philadelphia

    Police shot and hospitalized a man armed with a knife in North Philadelphia

    A man was hospitalized Wednesday morning and in critical condition after being shot by police in North Philadelphia.

    Two officers responded to a 911 call for a “person screaming” on the 1800 block of North Bailey Street about 2:50 a.m. Wednesday. Upon arriving, police said, they found a man, 31, armed with a knife, standing over a 30-year-old woman.

    According to the Philadelphia Police Department, the man moved toward police, jumping over a sofa while still armed, which led one officer to shoot the man once in the chest. The man was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he underwent surgery.

    Police said the woman was not injured.

    The case is now under investigation by the police department’s officer-involved shooting investigation unit and internal affairs bureau, and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Under police protocol, the officer who shot the man has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of the investigation.